Region

BEIRUT — Israeli air strikes that targeted a building in an upscale area near the Syrian capital killed three people early Saturday, a war monitor said.

State media reported that Syrian air defences responded to an Israeli "air attack".

Since Syria's civil war broke out in 2011, Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes on its northern neighbour, mainly targeting Iran-backed forces, including Hizbollah fighters as well as Syrian army positions.

The strikes have increased since Israel's war on Gaza began on October 7.

In the latest incident three people were killed, said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

He could not immediately confirm whether the dead were fighters.

Rahman added that many other people were injured in the strikes on a neighbourhood hosting "villas for top military and officials".

The war monitor, which has a network of sources inside Syria, earlier reported the "Israeli attack" on "a residential building west of the Syrian capital Damascus", with the sound of "violent explosions".

State news agency SANA cited a military source saying that at around 1:05 am (22:05 GMT Friday), "the Israeli enemy launched an air attack from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan, targeting a number of points in the Damascus countryside".

Air defences responded to the missiles and "downed some of them", the statement said, adding that the attack caused "some material losses".

The strikes came hours after an area near a military airport west of Damascus came under missile attack on Friday, the observatory said, while the defence ministry said drones had entered Syrian airspace from the direction of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The observatory did not say who was behind what it described as a "missile" attack.

"Positions belonging to Lebanon's Hizbollah and other pro-Iran groups are present" in the area, added the observatory.

A statement from the defence ministry said that at around 2:10pm on Friday, “two drones violated Syrian air space from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan”.

“Air defence systems confronted them and they were shot down west of Damascus,” the statement added, also without specifying who was behind the incident.

Contacted by AFP, the Israeli forces declined to comment on “reports in the foreign media”.

BEIRUT — A senior Hamas official survived on Saturday an Israeli assassination attempt in Lebanon, a Palestinian security source told AFP, with rescuers reporting two civilians killed in the strike south of Beirut.

Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said Israeli forces struck a car in the coastal town of Jadra, about 40 kilometres from the border.

The Palestinian source, requesting anonymity for security concerns, said the strike "was a failed attempt to assassinate a senior official in the (Hamas) movement".

An official with the Lebanese Risala Scout association, which operates rescue teams and is affiliated with the Hizbollah-allied Amal movement, told AFP that two civilians had been killed.

The official identified them as a vegetable vendor and a Syrian man on a motorbike who both happened to be nearby.

There was no immediate comment from Israel.

An AFP photographer at the scene saw a damaged car and a charred motorcycle nearby, with bloodstains all over the site of the strike near the beach in Jadra.

DUBAI — Aid groups working in Yemen are warning of rising shipping costs and delivery delays due to the Red Sea attacks by Houthi rebels which threaten to aggravate one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.

After nine years of conflict, more than half of Yemen's population requires humanitarian assistance, according to the United Nations, with severe funding shortages hampering the response.

A spate of attacks on commercial vessels by Yemen's Houthi since November has further compounded the country's woes, as shipping companies face higher costs as they detour around southern Africa to avoid the Red Sea.

The Iran-backed rebels say their campaign is in solidarity with Palestinians in the Hamas-Israel war.

The World Food Programme (WFP) said it is already feeling the knock-on effects of the escalation, which has also seen US and UK strikes on Houthi military targets.

"As the security situation in the Red Sea continues to deteriorate, WFP is facing increased shipping costs as well as potential delivery delays," the UN agency said in a report this week.

"The food security situation is expected to deteriorate over the coming months," WFP said, adding that the war-torn country depends on imports for 90 per cent of its food needs.

The Red Sea attacks have raised insurance premiums for shipping companies, forcing many to avoid the vital route that normally carries about 12 per cent of global maritime trade.

According to the International Monetary Fund, Red Sea traffic has already dropped by at least 30 per cent this year as a result of the attacks. 

Many companies are opting for a lengthy detour around Africa, which adds considerable fuel and other costs that can trickle down to consumer goods. 

WFP said it is facing higher shipping costs because of "increased freight and insurance rates, and extra fuel costs", without specifying the route aid ships are taking.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC), another aid group working in Yemen, said it was “already seeing delays in shipments of lifesaving commodities, including pharmaceuticals, due to the military escalation”.

The organisation is still delivering at full capacity because of its stockpiles of aid, said Anya Cowley, the IRC’s policy, advocacy and communications coordinator for Yemen.

But it is beginning to see “rising inflation, and increased costs of basic commodities in local markets such as food and fuel”, she told AFP.

“If the situation in the Red Sea escalates, the ability of humanitarian organisations like IRC to provide humanitarian assistance may be impacted,” Cowley added.

The Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country has been gripped by conflict since the Houthis overran the capital Sanaa in 2014, triggering a Saudi-led military intervention in support of the government the following year.

Hundreds of thousands have died in fighting or from indirect causes such as lack of food in what the UN has called one of the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophes.

“The humanitarian crisis is as bad as ever,” said Dalila Mahdawi of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Terror listing 

After the United States last month said it was relisting the Houthis as a “terrorist” organisation, Mahdawi said there were concerns the designation would further endanger the humanitarian response.

She said it was too early to tell how this would affect the supply of aid as the US has promised to minimise the impact on humanitarian groups.

“We have seen with previous designations like this that humanitarian exemptions are critical to allowing the continuation of the provision of aid so we hope this will be agreed in this situation as well,” Mahdawi, the ICRC’s head of communications for Yemen, told AFP.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Yemen is experiencing some of the highest malnutrition rates ever recorded, with more than 17 million facing food insecurity. 

Nearly half of all children under five are suffering moderate to severe stunting, it said.

Last week, OCHA launched an appeal for $4 billion in aid for Yemen this year following funding shortfalls that have forced several organisations to cut assistance.

In January, 26 aid groups working in Yemen issued a joint statement warning that the impact of the Red Sea escalation is already being felt by humanitarian groups.

“Disruption to trade is pushing up prices and causing delays in shipments of lifesaving goods,” said the groups including CARE, the Norwegian Refugee Council and Save the Children.

Geneva — Israel's reported ongoing destruction of all buildings along the border inside Gaza with the aim of creating a "buffer zone" is a war crime, the UN rights chief warned on Thursday.

Israel's "extensive destruction of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly, amounts to a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and a war crime", Volker Turk said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered troops to prepare to enter Gaza's crowded southern city of Rafah, even as new talks aimed at securing a truce with Hamas were set to open Thursday in Cairo.

Netanyahu announced the order after rejecting Hamas's response to a ceasefire proposal at the centre of recent intensive diplomatic efforts, dismissing what he called the militant group's "bizarre demands".

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in Israel as part of his fifth Middle East crisis tour since the October 7 surprise attack, insisted he still saw "space for agreement to be reached" to halt the fighting and bring home hostages.

Heavy fighting raged on unabated, with more air strikes hitting Hamas-ruled Gaza, now in its fifth month of war, where the health ministry said another 109 people were killed overnight.

Alarm has mounted especially for the more than one million Palestinians crowded into Gaza's far south as the battlefront has crept ever closer to the city of Rafah on the Egyptian border.

UN chief Antonio Guterres warned on Wednesday that an Israeli military push into the city "would exponentially increase what is already a humanitarian nightmare".

Netanyahu, in televised remarks Wednesday, said he had ordered troops to "prepare to operate" in Rafah and predicted that coming months would bring "total victory".

Regarding the ceasefire proposal, he added: “Giving in to the bizarre demands of Hamas that we have just heard will... only invite another massacre.”

Blinken told reporters in Tel Aviv that Hamas’s counter-proposal had at least offered an opportunity “to pursue negotiations”.

“While there are some clear non-starters in Hamas’s response, we do think it creates space for agreement to be reached, and we will work at that relentlessly until we get there,” Blinken said, hours after meeting Netanyahu.

He later met with moderates in Netanyahu’s war Cabinet, including Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot, for talks on “the hostages and the strong desire that we both have to see them returned to their families”, and also held talks with Israel’s main opposition leader Yair Lapid.

Cairo talks 

A new round of negotiations was set to open Thursday in Cairo, aimed at achieving “calm” in Gaza and a prisoner-hostage exchange, an Egyptian official said.

Egypt was urging “both parties to show the necessary flexibility” to make a deal, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Hamas said a delegation led by Khalil Al Hayya, a leading member of the group’s political bureau, was travelling to Cairo on Thursday.

The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas’s unprecedented surprise attack on Israel on October 7. Israel vowed to eliminate Hamas and launched air strikes and a ground offensive that have killed at least 27,840 people, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza health ministry.

Hamas fighters seized around 250 hostages on October 7. Israel says 132 remain in Gaza, of whom 29 are believed to have died.

The fate of the hostages has gripped Israeli society, and while Netanyahu has repeatedly insisted military pressure is the only way to bring them home, he has faced mounting calls to strike a deal.

Addressing the prime minister, one of the hostages released as part of a temporary truce in November, Adina Moshe, told a press conference in Tel Aviv: “Everything is in your hands.”

“And I’m very afraid and very concerned that if you continue with this line of destroying Hamas, there won’t be any hostages left to release.”

 ‘Abysmal conditions’

As Israel prepared to press further south, fears have grown for the displaced Palestinian civilians thronging Rafah, pressed against Gaza’s southern border with Egypt.

More than half of Gaza’s 2.4 million people are estimated to have sought safety in the city, according to the United Nations.

“Their living conditions are abysmal,” UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said. “They lack the basic necessities to survive, stalked by hunger, disease and death.

“As the war encroaches further into Rafah, I am extremely concerned about the safety and well-being of families which have endured the unthinkable in search of safety.”

Blinken stopped short of calling on Israel not to move on the city, but did voice concern. Any “military operation that Israel undertakes needs to put civilians first and foremost”, he said.

BAGHDAD — Iraq on Thursday condemned a US air strike that killed a senior commander from a pro-Iran armed group accused of having been involved in attacks on American troops in the region.

The US attack on Wednesday came after a wave of strikes on Iran-linked targets in Iraq and Syria last week following the killing of three American troops in Jordan's north-eastern borders with Syria on January 28.

The US Central Command (CENTCOM) said the commander killed on Wednesday was targeted "in response to the attacks on US service members".

The strike killed "a Kataeb Hizbollah commander responsible for directly planning and participating in attacks on US forces in the region," according to CENTCOM.

"The United States will continue to take necessary action to protect our people. We will not hesitate to hold responsible all those who threaten our forces' safety," it added.

Iraqi authorities slammed the strike as a “blatant assassination” in a residential neighbourhood of Baghdad.

“The international coalition is completely overstepping the reasons and objectives for which it is present on our territory,” said Yehia Rasool, the military spokesman for Iraq’s prime minister.

“This path pushes the Iraqi government more than ever before to end the coalition’s mission which has become a factor of instability for Iraq,” he added.

He was referring to the US-led international military alliance formed in 2014 to fight the Daesh terror group, the year the extremist group overran nearly a third of Iraq’s territory.

Kataeb Hizbollah, which announced it was suspending its attacks on US forces after the deadly Jordan attack, said one of its commanders had been killed, identifying him as Abu Baqr Al Saadi. He was responsible for “military affairs” in Syria, an official from the group told AFP.

The Hashed Al Shaabi, a coalition of mainly pro-Iran paramilitaries, of which Kataeb Hizbollah is part, now integrated into Iraq’s regular security forces, also confirmed Saadi’s death.

An interior ministry official said a total of three people, two Kataeb Hizbollah leaders and their driver, had died in the strike, which was carried out by a drone in the east Baghdad neighbourhood of Mashtal.

‘Red lines’ 

The latest US strike sparked widespread condemnation in Iraq, with a pro-Iran parliamentary coalition dubbing it an attack on “Iraqi sovereignty”.

Washington has “crossed all red lines by targeting regular forces and men who contributed to defeating Islamic State terrorism”, said the Coordination Framework, an alliance of pro-Iran Shiite parties that includes the Hashed Al Shaabi.

Iraq’s pro-Iran Al Nujaba movement in a statement promised a “targeted retaliation”, assuring that “these crimes will not go unpunished”.

The group added that American “violations” will not cease without “a firm official position from the Iraqi government”.

US and allied troops have been targeted more than 165 times in the Middle East since mid-October in attacks linked to a surge in violence over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

The majority of the attacks have been claimed by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a loose alliance of Iran-backed groups angered by US support for Israel in the war in Gaza.

Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hizbollah group said “resistance movements in the region have total confidence” in their Iraqi counterparts and the commander’s killing will only encourage them to continue acts they say are in support of Palestinians.

The United States considers Kataeb Hizbollah a terrorist group.

‘Playing with fire’ 

The Hashed Al Shaabi has said that 16 of its fighters were killed and 36 people wounded in US strikes on Friday, which Washington said hit 85 targets at seven different sites in Iraq and Syria.

“Targeting the Hashed Al Shaabi is playing with fire,” the group’s leader Faleh al-Fayyad warned later.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said at least 29 pro-Iran fighters were killed in Syria.

Iraq analyst Sajad Jiyad, of the New York-based Century Foundation think tank, said he expected the tensions to continue to spiral.

“These groups have a lot of capabilities, they are active in several countries now, the US is willing to engage, to retaliate, to kill members of these groups,” he said.

“The US is giving no indication it is going to pull back or stand down its military activity in the Middle East,” he said, adding “it is very difficult to suddenly see an end to the tensions”.

The United States and Iraq opened talks on the future of the US-led troop presence in January, following a request by Iraqi Prime Minister Mohamed Shia Al Sudani for a timetable for their withdrawal.

Washington has some 900 troops in Syria and 2,500 in Iraq as part of an international coalition against DaeshIts troops in Iraq are deployed at the invitation of Baghdad, but those in Syria are located in areas outside Syrian government control.

GENEVA — The United Nations appealed on Wednesday for $4.1 billion to provide desperately needed aid to civilians in war-ravaged Sudan and those who have fled as refugees, warning the conflict had fuelled “epic suffering”.

The brutal conflict that erupted in April last year has caused a humanitarian collapse and left over half of the country’s population — around 25 million people — in need of assistance and protection.

“Ten months of conflict have robbed the people of Sudan of nearly everything — their safety, their homes and their livelihoods,” United Nations aid chief Martin Griffiths said in a statement. 

The war between Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah Al Burhan and his former deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, commander of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has killed thousands, including between 10,000 and 15,000 in a single city in the western Darfur region, according to UN experts.

And the expanding fighting in Sudan has sparked rampant hunger with nearly 18 million people facing acute food insecurity.

The intense hostilities are meanwhile continuing to damage water supply networks and other critical civilian infrastructure, and left nearly three quarters of health facilities in conflict-affected states out of service. 

At the same time, diseases like cholera, measles and malaria are spreading fast.

This coupled with soaring malnutrition rates has created a situation where at least one child dies every two hours in the sprawling Zamzam camp for displaced people in the western Darfur region, the Doctors Without Borders charity warned this week.

Amid widespread reports of gender-based violence, the war has also created one of the world’s largest protection and displacement crises.

Nearly eight million people have fled their homes, including more than 1.5 million who have crossed into neighbouring countries, according to UN figures. 

The UN and its partners said they needed $2.7 billion this year to reach 14.7 million people with desperately-needed aid inside the country.

“The generosity of donors helps us provide food and nutrition, shelter, clean water, and education for children, and to fight the scourge of gender-based violence and care for the survivors,” Griffiths said. 

“But last year’s appeal was less than half funded. This year, we must do better and with a heightened sense of urgency.”

The UN refugee agency UNHCR meanwhile said it needs another $1.4 billion to help nearly 2.7 million people — refugees and members of their host communities — across five of Sudan’s neighbouring countries.